RadioShack will be taking a leaf out of Microsoft's book (remember that Bing thing?) by renaming itself to simply "The Shack" in the hopes that it will reach out to consumers to help them understand that the store isn't just a nuts-and-bolts (batteries-and-parts, anyone?) place for the electronic era. They want people to know that they're competing with those larger retail stores in selling computers, LCD televisions, and more, and I suppose they think "The Shack" will cause droves of people to suddenly forsake BestBuy and Wal-Mart's offerings of the common consumer electronics. In a way I couldn't rewrite better, a RadioShack veteran customer writes his feelings on the subject at hand and stresses that "you can change your look, even your name, but you are still just what you are--and people notice."

Too true. About a year or so ago I needed a USB to serial converter and since there was a Radio Shack near by I popped in to see if they had one. well, they had one... and wanted $60 for it. Needless to say I laughed at them and left. The few times I've been in there since then, everything was still overpriced--come on, $50 for a $15 pair of headphones? They'll go the way of Circuit City if they keep this up, I'm surprised they haven't done so yet.

Every time I walk by a radio shack there is never anyone in there. Maybe its just my location and the other more populated areas are picking up the slack.

'The Shack' gets a good deal of business in my area but mostly because of the emphasis on wireless phones and accessories and other little sparkly things you can adhere to or dangle off of your wireless phone.

Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name because "fried" became the trendy thing to flip out over for health reasons. Kinda like how trans fats were a few years ago, and how corn syrup seems to be now.

KFC kept most of the name recognition they had, and stopped people from saying fried. Yeah, everyone knew it was still fried food, but, without "fried" as part of the name, it seemed a little less bad.

They're suffering from economies of scale, and electronics that are made to be replaced rather than repaired. A RS is, what, a small store with 2-3 employees there all the time? A Best Buy will swallow 10 Radio Shacks & have room left over to snack on an Apple Store.

Shame, too. RS used to be a great place to go, not just for electronic parts but for original computers that were actually quite good. (Yes, I owned a TRS-80 Color Computer 3 with OS-9 Level II, and liked it!) Now... Between Best Buy and the internet, they're doomed.

...back in the early 90s when I was in college for about a year. I primarily sold computers - when I started the 486SX-25 was the "mainstream" level of hardware. Even back then, I couldn't really for the life of me understand how the place stayed in business - Tandy computers were mostly crap, and computers were their primary money maker (next to wiring/cables/etc. and crap - that is and always was the real cash cow).

There were a few models that were ok, mostly the "business class" stuff that none of the stores really stocked. They even sold a 486DX-50 (not DX2) that was pretty nice for its day. But the majority of what was on the floor in the stores was utter crap. I think I sold about 20 or so Tandy "Sensations" in my day, which if I remember correctly was a 486SX-25 which came with what can only be describe as the most dysfunctional CD-ROM drive ever designed by monkey. They were relatively expensive, but they were the only machines we sold at the time with "multimedia" so they sold pretty well. I had 16 of them returned for various reasons before I left - and they docked me for the commissions on each of them (bastards).

Right before I left the merger/buyout/selloff/whatever with AST happened and we started selling a lot of their "beige box" models - which were still shitty but dramatically cheaper than Tandy branded hardware - and that was basically that for their computer line...

Anyway, as far as I can tell its all been downhill since then - and they were pretty far down the hill even back then. They average IQ of the staff has definitely dropped - not that it was all that high, but at least back then you usually had 1 guy at each store that wasn't a complete idiot.

I can only speculate, but my guess as to how they stay in business is the "oh shit, I need a weird wire/plug/component and I don't want to wait for mail order" crowd. And they seem to have parred back the inventory of that type of stuff from what I can tell - most of the "hobbyist" electronic components seem to be gone. Now its just ridiculously overpriced low-oxygen-gold-tipped-24k-double-shielded stupidity. I'd like to hate them even more for it, but everyone does this silliness now - eventually I hope consumers get a clue...

Anyway, "The Shack" is just dumb - it doesn't really say anything meaningful about the place. I have some what I think are some more appropriate names they should consider. How about "The Exploitation Station"? Or maybe "The Cable Jacket Fraud Racket?

It's just a cheap way to get some publicity. Doing something ridiculous because people quit paying attention to them. Very much like North Korea.

Yeah, but I doubt they will be able to get Bill Clinton into their stores

For me, Radio Shack was for years the place to go to get those parts you could not find anywhere else. When I needed a mix of different gauge cables and wiring they had it. When I needed those obscure audio adapters, they add them. When I needed x, y, or z part to do something custom with anything electronics, they were the place to go...years back

But when they had some genius think they could become a regular electronics a la Best Buy, I stopped going.

Radio Shack needs to stick to the business they know best which is selling electronic parts. They need to stay out of the consumer electronics retail business because they obviously can't compete with Best Buy, Walmart, etc....just look at their prices. They have the parts business all to themselves and that's how they made their name. If they would focus on their core business, the business that made them who they are, they'd be much more successful.